avatar felt sullied for being involved in the killing of something so brutal and basic, and I got the sense that she craved a real challenge, one that would stimulate her tactically as well as just physically. A rival of her own, perhaps.

I was also surprised to discover that a good portion of her disgust was directed at Longshanks. Something about the way he’d killed a helpless enemy didn’t sit well with her, or perhaps it was simply that she felt he’d stolen her kill.

I felt a rush of warmth toward my avatar as she pushed those feelings down and went to help Longshanks to his feet. When it became clear he could not walk by himself—partly from blood loss, partly because his left leg was dangling uselessly, attached by only exposed bone and sinews—she handed her spear to one of the other gnomes, then bent to pick up their leader as carefully as she could.

Holding Longshanks in her arms, Ris’kin led the way up the tunnel as we began our journey back to the Grotto. The rest of the scouts hurriedly finished packing away their newly-acquired skins, then collected their fallen torches and followed, the dead mole-rat now just a shapeless mound in the growing darkness behind us.

Four

The Menagerie

Benin

“Why are we here, again?”

“For the thousandth time, Coll, keep your voice down. Your feet are making enough noise already. No need to get your mouth involved too.”

The sound of Coll’s footsteps ceased, then resumed at the same volume, except now he was clearly walking on tiptoes. His question came again, this time in an exaggerated whisper that somehow managed to be even louder than the first time.

“WHY ARE WE DOING THIS?”

From one of the cages nearby came an alarmed gobble and a rustling of feathers. Both men froze momentarily before continuing on.

Benin bit back a frustrated reply and instead took a deep breath, letting it out slowly through his nose before hissing, “Every self-respecting mage needs a familiar. I can’t get one without having a license—which, given our current situation, is not likely to be forthcoming.” He had to swallow a surge of bitterness. “Ergo, here we are.”

“Stop calling me Ergo.”

Benin let out a strangled sound. “I wasn’t. It means—”

“I know what it means. I was kidding,” the big man huffed. “And I get why you want a familiar. I’m not an idiot. What I mean is, why did we come here?”

“What?”

“Well, aren’t there other menageries in other regions?”

“Probably. Like I said, though, to get a familiar from any of those I’d need a license—”

“To break in and steal one?”

Benin stopped. Of all the Guild menageries in Kelaria, why did I insist we break into the one under the jurisdiction of the psychopath who apparently wants us dead?

He was prevented from pursuing that line of thought when Coll walked right into the back of him.

The warrior was approximately twice Benin’s mass; the collision sent Benin stumbling into a stack of empty cages, yet somehow the big man kept his feet, grabbing a fistful of Benin’s robes and hauling him upright with a mumbled apology.

One of the cages on the top of the stack was now teetering precariously. Benin lunged forward and managed to stop it from falling, but the metallic disturbance had already roused the inhabitant of the enclosure beside them, and the rattling of the cages gave way to rattling of a different timbre as the flat head of a huge snake rose into view.

The serpent’s eyes were glowing yellow, the pupils vertical black slits, and a leathery hood snapped into view, spreading to frame the head threateningly. All Benin could see of its shadowy body was the outline of coils in the shape of an alarmingly large beehive, and a dark bulky tail. The latter was vibrating vigorously, presumably with the snake’s outrage at having its slumber disturbed by a pair of idiot humans.

Unthinkingly, Benin activated Arcane Sight.

Hamadryad

A venomous hybrid of the rattlesnake and king cobra species.

Primary element: earth (poison)

Primary class: reptile

His shoulders slumped in relief at seeing the information overlaid onto his vision, along with the acid-green aura now surrounding the hamadryad. For some reason, Arcane Sight hadn’t worked on any of the bizarre creatures they’d encountered while hunting Cores underground, and he’d been beginning to worry the ability was somehow broken.

Or worse, that he was broken. As a single-element sorcerer, and a pyromancer at that—the rarest kind, yet also the most often mocked for their typically short mortality rates—the others already made him the subject of their ridicule most of the time. How much worse would it have gotten if he could no longer even identify familiars?

Nearly all his peers had their own familiar; had gotten theirs years ago, in fact. The thought of them all as bright-eyed young apprentices queuing up with their family’s gold in their hands to buy their licenses made him sick. Mostly with envy—not that he’d admit that to anyone.

He’d dealt with that particular disadvantage the same way he dealt with every other: with a sneer on his face and a shrug of his shoulders. The best kind of armor, on the outside anyway. Most of his classmates believed he genuinely didn’t care about being the odd one out, that not having a magical animal companion was a choice rather than a cruel twist of fate. As if anyone in their right mind would choose not to have one.

The only way Benin would ever afford a license was via sponsorship from one of the Guild’s high mages. But given his most recent predecessors’ track record of early, conflagration-related deaths, nobody wanted to patronize a pyro—or ‘hothead’, as they were commonly known. It would literally be like burning money.

And so Benin was now forced to resort to desperate measures.

He scowled at the snake. It scowled back, an impressive feat for a face without eyebrows. Belatedly, he realized that instead of metal bars or wire mesh, the walls of the serpent’s enclosure were made of thick glass. As the creature’s

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